Tele-marking time

You don't need much snow to have knee deep powder.

After some promising snow in November, we had virtually nothing in December. In fact, it was the third driest month recorded in the last 150 years, and the level 4 hazard was for fire not avalanche. However, there was enough cold for the resort to make snow and so, as we waited for the season to really begin, we took up our telemark skis and started to practice.

Last April we decided to give tele-marking a go, and spent four days with Nicko of Telemark Tracks (www.telemarktracks.com) over in Val d'Isere. (You can read how we got on in the follow feature in the Financial Times )

When conditions require you to stay on the groomed stuff, this is certainly one way to not get bored with the piste. We've moved from blues to red and (with a bit of fresh snow) to some gentle off piste. More practice required but things are slowly getting better - as are the snow conditions. PK

New route to Lac d'Arpitettaz

After a snowy day the sun came out and we just had to go for a walk. It's been a while since we've done this route and we found quite a few changes. 

Across the Plat de la Le and up the first section everything was covered in an inch or two of fresh snow - not enough to completely cover the autumn colours, but it gave it a certain something.

Walking up from the Plat to the bridge

Reaching the upper level, we came to a new bridge spanning the Navisence. Since a storm in August 2013 washed away much of the river bank, (including the original bridge), several temporary bridges have been used to span the multiple streams and rocky floodplain, but these too were vulnerable to flooding. Now that's changed as this new wooden structure is built up on solid concrete footings.

New bridge spans the Navisence

Once over on the east side we found the path has been re routed. The new way, freshly carved into the turf, heads south to pass close above the cascade, before climbing up to the cross and enclosures at Le Chiesso.

The new path goes above the Cascade de la Volermo

Continuing on up to the Lac, there was another surprise - two shepherd's huts with solar panels had been dropped in for the season. Designed by three carpenters from Diablerets these high tech, mini pods are light enough for a helicopter to lift up to the high 'alpages', giving shepherds a more comfortable night under the stars.  PK

Temporary shepherd's huts by Lac d'Arpitetta

You can read more about this project on www.24heures.ch

Snow angel

The Besso's snow angel

Can you see her? Go straight down from the left peak and she's lying on the rock. We've never spotted her before, but this weekend our neighbour pointed her out. Of course she's not always there -and she can vanish overnight.

Incase you still can't see her.....  PK

...she circled in pink.

Look back on winter 2015/16

As the season comes to an early end, it's nice to look back to just some of the epic ski days we had. After a lean start it turned into a great winter.

Tree-mendous!

Skiing the trees

The new year arrived with lots of snow - one memorable storm lasting practically the whole week. Things quickly filled in, and we skied the trees like we've never done before. That fabulous sensation of snaking down through the gaps, dropping onto pillows of deep, fluffy, forgiving snow.
As our ski buddy Ray said 'I could hand my pass in now, as it doesn't get better than that' - high praise indeed.

Tree-mendous!

2015's Weather

This has been one of the warmest and driest December's on record (here in Switzerland). Lots of blue sky days and no new snow. So what was the rest of the year like?

January 2015
















Started pretty mild, with rain to over 3000m, then strong winds and not much snow below 1500m. But the upper slopes had some good snow, and the month ended with a 2 day storm.

February 2015

A delicate start, with all the fresh snow on top of some unstable layers - the resort blasted practically every slope to make it safe. Temperatures rose for a mild half-term week. Overall some good skiing

March 2015 

Some great snow and skiing especially if you hiked

April 2015

Some great snow ended the season. However, the overall impression of the winter; not many big dumps of snow - just small storms.

May 2015

The winter snow melted away quite quickly, opening up the walking routes early.

June 2015

Beautiful warm weather, and the meadows were soon a mass of flowers 

July 2015

July was a heat-wave and a fire ban was enforced - this lasted well into August.

August 2015

No fireworks for the 1st August celebrations (despite heavy rain on the day). The heat-wave ended, but fine weather continued with an occasional summer storm bringing much needed rain.

September 2015

The hills were very dry and the grasses golden. Wonderful autumnal walking weather.

October 2015

The larch colours where stunning this year - getting more golden by the day. There was the usual early dusting of snow down to valley which soon melted away.

November 2015

Very little precipitation and the fire ban was brought back in. The autumn colours continued to look stunning. The resort delayed opening for skiers by two weeks - the snow finally arrived around the 20th.

December 2015

Sunny, warm and settled with no new snow. A huge high sat over this part of Europe forcing all the bad weather further north, across the UK and into Scandinavia. 

Below 30 degrees

Skiing powder on low angle slopes

Below 30 sounds parky but in fact I'm thinking slope angle. This season there's already been an extraordinarily high number of skiers killed by avalanches. Many could have been avoided with better awareness and education in what causes slopes to slide.

One rule that's easy to follow is to keep to gentle terrain. Slopes less than 30 degrees in angle are generally unlikely to slide. But remember, look at what's above you too, even if your on the gentle stuff vibrations can ripple through the pack and break those weak layers in the steeper terrain above causing it to slide.

So how to tell the slope angle:

Topographical maps with winter routes,  have terrain over 30 degrees shaded in pink. For Switzerland there's an excellent range of 1: 50 000 produced and available from www.swisstopo.ch

Pink shaded steep slopes on the swisstopo maps

You can go online to use the excellent interactive mapping site with more detailed shading
www.map.geo.admin.ch

You can also attach an inclinometer to your ski pole. Then you simply lay your pole on the ground and see what angle it says. There are also poles with it already built in - K2 have an adjustable carbon pole - (LockJaw £95) unfortunately it measures from 30 - 50 degrees so if you can see the bubble your on the wrong slope...

Built in inclinometer on the K2 LockJaw ski pole

Snow - making it happen

Snow making 

After an unusually wet summer, autumn was long, warm and relatively dry. Finally, temperatures have dropped and winter is creeping in, but the 'good' weather has continued, so not much snow. But at least it can now be made, which is exactly what's been happening.

For the last week or two all across the alps and around this valley, snow cannons have been drawing thousands of k-joules of electricity to pump and mix water with air, atomising the water into droplets which, when jetted into the freezing air form ice crystals. Over the years snow making techniques have improved so it's now less icy and comes pretty close to feeling like the real thing.

But it comes at a price:
To cover 100m x 100m's to a depth of 30 cm you need 3000m3 of snow, made from 1.3 million litres of water.
The estimated cost for 1m3 of snow is about £5 (chf 7.50) so the above 10,000m sq would cost about£15,000 (chf 22,000).

To put this into a context, a piste 60m wide and 800m long will cost around  £72,000 (chf 105,600) - that's a lot of ski passes and all you've got is a pile of snow. You then need piste machines to spread it around and the lifts to get people up the mountain....

And of course there's the cost to the environment - the extra energy used, water drained from reservoirs and other water sources and the extra water when it melts - which isn't just when spring arrives. The snow they made in November all melted on the lower slopes because it was so warm, but higher up the snow making is putting down a good base so for the Christmas guests things are looking 'al-white'.


Figures are based on information in the following articles:
www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/07/snow-climate-change-effect-on-skiing
www.mtbuller.com.au/Winter/Snow-Report/Snow-Making
www.adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/snow-sports/snow-maker.htm

Look back on winter 2014

As winter melts away it's fun to look back at some of the great days we've had this season....

Paws for thought...

Chamois tracks

Go for a walk in the snowy woods and you'll see tracks of the animals you know live there but rarely meet. You can see where they've scampered up a bank, walked around in circles following good smells, and scraped away the snow to uncover something to eat.

Squirrel, lynx, deer, & chamois prints

With freezing temperatures and snow covering the vegetation for the next 5 months or so it's a tough time for these animals. Conserving energy is the name of the game and for this reason resorts restrict areas of the mountain as no go zones for walking, snow-shoeing and skiing.

Foot-print chart from www.mountainwilderness.ch

Whilst not wanting to scare any of these beasts into having to run and use energy, you'll often see animal tracks overlying old ski tracks. Using the route where the snow is firmest they use less energy, so we believe both can co-exist in the same spaces. These animals become habituated to man and that we (in winter) are not a threat. With no natural predators the larger animals are culled each September by hunters ie the winter doesn't threaten their numbers. Unlike the hunters, who take only the beautiful and strong, nature takes the weak and those less likely to survive.

For more information on how animals behave visit www.mountainwilderness.ch.

Since writing this the canton of Valais have introduced 142 no go (to people) zones. These zones have been designed by hunters! (hum...) Some of the best and most easily accessed off-piste terrain is affected by this ruling, areas close to the resorts. You can find out more about where they are on the following website -  www.respecter-cest-proteger.ch  - closest to here is off the back of the Bella Tola in St Luc, into the Turtmann valley.

Snow shapes

For the last 4 days it's been snowing on and off. We've had about 80 cm's fall in the village. So today, in between snow showers and snow clearing, I took my camera out into Mottec to photograph some of the wonderful snow forms.

Heli skiing and touring

In this part of the alps we have some of the highest peaks and some of the most spectacular heli landing spots. Last week we spent two unforgetable days, starting with a classic heli-drop on the Pigne d'Arolla, skiing and skinning into Italy for some fantastic snow, scenery and food.

We were guided by Dominique Fellay of Alpine Dreams, and flown by Heli Alps.

The big chill

Winter has finally arrived across the whole of Europe. Here the temperatures were -20 at the house this morning, rising to -10 by lunch-time. Swiss rail tracks have snapped in the cold and there are wonderful frost patterns on the window, but it's beautiful. The sun is out, the sky blue, snow clings to the trees and there's no wind.

Once out it's fine and the snow is skiing beautifully. We've been exploring some new routes and Eric's been wearing some sunny colours to warm up the pictures.

All or nothing

Storms hit Switzerland and much of Europe at the beginning of the month.

We went over to St Bernard area to explore some of the little know resorts of La Fouly, Vicheres and Champex Lac, and found some interesting stuff, both resorts and snow. Over there the wind had reached speeds of 270km/per hour. Too strong to form any cornices, it left the tops of the mountains scoured back to rock in places, the snow having been shifted and dropped several meters along where it lay up to 4m deep.

Skiing through the trees was interesting too with the ground littered with large branches and whole trees. Still we found some wonderful stuff - a beautiful and quiet area away from the crowds of Verbier.

Back in Zinal, the tops of the mountains are also back to the rock in places, the first coulour on the Chamois is a boulder field and the top 20m down to the dam is exposed rock and grass. The snow has gone somewhere, the trick is to find out where and access how loaded it is...

Snow shoeing by moon light

After all the snow storms, last night was still and clear - perfect for a snowshoe trip by the light of the full moon. We just went up into the forest behind Mottec, and saw fresh snow hare and fox tracks, everything was beautifully quiet and the snow sparkled just like the stars.

Coming back into the village everything looked magical and certainly worthy of a picture or two.

Snow has fallen snow on snow....

After one of the driest autumn in the Alps for (some say) 150 years, the weather finally turned and from the 14th December we've had more snow than we could at times cope with. So much fell on the 16th that they closed the road for 1.5 days as a precaution against avalanche. Things have settled down now and since Christmas we've had more snow but some good skiing too in deep deep powder.

Once dug out, our new outdoor fireplace has made a great venue for some pre dinner vin chaud.

 

You can get an idea of the depth of snow from the garden room's roof.

 

From ice to Nice

photo by: Will Herrington

It's only 2 weeks since the previous post and how the landscape has changed. The resorts are open at weekends and the international race teams are being relocated from other venues and are flooding in from all over Europe to race in Zinal. Us mortals benifit tremendously from all the hard work the lift company has put in and we've been making turns before most. Now the real snow has arrived and we can venture off piste too. This is from Sunday which was before the recent falls. More forcaste for the rest of the week.

Yellow, snow

A cold and wet front came through at the end of last week - a good excuse for a fire. But on Sunday we woke to a stunning day - fresh snow and beautiful autumn colours. It was calm and warm down here but up high you could see the strong winds blowing off the powder snow.

Proper powder

A snowy weekend has left the whole Val d'Anniviers in great shape. Lots of powder in the Chamois, top to bottom, putting the pleasure back into our run home.